High School Football: Gladiators Face Off Against Knights

By Mike Blum

JOHNS CREEK, GA — Two prolific offenses will face off Friday night, as the Centennial High School Knights take on the Johns Creek High School Gladiators with the Region 7-AAAAAA championship likely on the line.

The two teams come into the game unbeaten in the region at 5-0, with Centennial all but assured a region title with a victory over the Gladiators. Johns Creek still has to play next week at frequent region champion Alpharetta, which could force a three-way tie for first if Johns Creek wins Friday but loses next week to the Raiders.

Centennial won 14-6 at Alpharetta two weeks ago, turning in an outstanding defensive effort to hold the Raiders to a pair of field goals. After allowing an average of 35 points in their first four games, the Knights have limited their last three opponents to a total of 34 points, but have not seen an explosive offense like Johns Creek’s since early losses to Northside Warner Robins and Roswell.

The Knights are 5-2 overall, with Johns Creek bringing a 6-1 record into Friday’s game. The Gladiators have yet to play a competitive game this season, winning six times by an average score of 50-19, with its one loss coming 49-0 against one of the country’s highest-ranked teams. The Gladiators have defeated the region’s three middle tier teams in their three most recent games, but have not faced a real test other than their lopsided loss to a national powerhouse from Washington, D.C.

The Johns Creek offense has been pretty much unstoppable in the team’s six wins, led by four-year starting quarterback Zach Gibson, who has passed for more than 300 yards in each of the his last four games with 18 touchdowns. Without Zach Williams, a freshman receiver at Arizona, Gibson has spread the pass catching duties around this season, with senior Giovanni Dyer the team leader with 41 catches for 594 yards and nine touchdowns along with a kickoff return for a touchdown. The last four weeks, Dyer has 33 receptions for 479 yards and eight of his nine touchdown catches.

Junior Dalton Pearson hasn’t caught more than four passes in a game, but has several long touchdown catches among his seven receiving touchdowns. Senior Matt Casey and junior Yong Min Lee both have 100-yard receiving games the last two weeks, with Casey catching a touchdown pass in each of the last three games. Senior Nate Hope has rushed for seven touchdowns and well over 600 yards, with backup Will Watson contributing some big numbers in recent weeks.

The Johns Creek defense has played respectably since allowing four touchdown passes in their region opener against North Atlanta, yielding a modest 60 points in the last four games. The Gladiator defense is led by seniors Jared White, Tre’vaughn Barnett, Miles Younger and Neil Ilenrey, juniors Jon Ross Maye and Patrick Taylor and sophomore Cole Nelson.

The Gladiators will try to slow down a fast-paced Centennial offense led by senior Max Brosmer, who is
again putting up huge numbers on a weekly basis. Brosmer passed for 480 yards and six touchdowns last week in three quarters against an outmatched Dunwoody team, but also had just under 800 yards through the air in the Knights’ two losses against quality non-region opponents.

On the season, he has 2370 yards passing and 22 touchdowns despite a season-ending injury to standout sophomore receiver Julian Nixon late in the team’s second game. The Knights have a productive group of receivers, providing Brosmer with multiple potential targets, just one of them a senior. Junior Richard Shaw has 38 catches for 683 yards and seven touchdowns, followed by sophomore Drake Mason (34-575-5). Senior Revekian Mathis had his third 100-yard game of the season last week and junior Freddy Fairly has a touchdown catch in three of the last five games.

Third-year starter Cal Dickie gives the Knights an excellent complement to the team’s dynamic passing attack, rushing for just over 900 yards on 100 carries for 10 touchdowns. Dickie, who started at receiver before moving into the backfield this season, has had some huge games statistically, rushing for 315 yards and three touchdowns two weeks ago against Chattahoochee, and combining for 275 yards rushing and receiving with four rushing touchdowns earlier in the season against Cambridge.

Both defenses will be severely tested Friday night, and the one that has at least a few answers against the opposing offenses is likely to emerge with the win. Unlike Alpharetta, which has won four region titles since 2011, both Centennial and Johns Creek are unaccustomed to competing for region championships.

In its 20 seasons of fielding a varsity football team, Centennial has won just one region championship, that coming during an undefeated regular season in 2002 under Mike Cloy, who started the school’s program in the late 1990s. The Knights went 8-2 the following year, but after removing Cloy as head coach following the ’04 season, did not win more than six games in a year until 2016, Cloy also started the Johns Creek program and led the Gladiators to regular season records of 9-1 and 8-2 and in the second and third seasons of varsity football in 2011 and ’12. But after going a combined 1-19 the next two seasons, Cloy was out, with Matt Kemper coming over from Pope to replace him.

In his second season as head coach, Kemper guided the Gladiators to an 8-2 record and a region title before leaving to take the Roswell job. The Gladiators tied for first with Centennial in 2016, but won the region title on a tiebreaker thanks to a 24-21 victory over the Knights. Matt Helmerich took over as head coach from Kemper, and after a 3-7 record last year, has the Gladiators in position for what could be a second region title in three years.

Centennial is on its fifth head coach since Cloy, but the Knights have seen a revival of their program in
recent seasons. Lenny Gregory directed the Knights to an 8-2 record and a tie for first in the region in his second year as head coach, but returned to Gwinnett County to take the Collins Hill head coaching job after the season.

Michael Perry took over as Centennial’s head coach prior to the 2017 season, and matched Gregory’s 2016 region of 7-1 record for a second place finish behind Alpharetta. The Knights are 12-1 in region play under Perry, and if they can defeat the Gladiators Friday night, will be within easy reach of the program’s first region title in more than 15 years.

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